'BJP may have paid bribes to topple UPA-I during trust vote'

Union Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal on Friday hit out at the BJP for disrupting the Parliament proceedings over the alleged 'cash-for-votes' scam in 2008 saying the opposition party might have paid bribes to topple the UPA-I government during the trust vote at that time.

Union Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal on Friday hit out at the BJP for disrupting the Parliament proceedings over the alleged 'cash-for-votes' scam in 2008 saying the opposition party might have paid bribes to topple the UPA-I government during the trust vote at that time.

"The so-called Wikileaks disclosure says that bribes were paid to MPs belonging Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal. Had that been the case, the RLD would have voted in favour of the UPA-I government which was facing a vote of confidence. But the party did not do so. This needs to be underscored," Jaiswal told reporters here.

The senior Congress leaders said, "Not only the RLD did not vote for the UPA, it also ended up siding with the BJP-led NDA and the tie-up continued during the Lok Sabha elections held several months later."

The coal minister said it appears that the BJP had paid bribes to topple the government during the trust vote in 2008 "as the alleged payees ended up being on their side".

Jaiswal claimed that the BJP was "feeling desperate as there seems to be no chance for the party to make a mark in the four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry where Assembly elections are due shortly."

A set of US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks has claimed that an aide of Congress leader Satish Sharma allegedly showed a US embassy employee "two chests containing cash" and said Rs 50-60 crore is ready for use as "pay-offs" to win the support of some MPs ahead of crucial vote of confidence in UPA government over the Indo-US nuke deal.